


The Danse Macabre

by Wisteria_Mutterings



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Boyfriends, Canon Gay Relationship, Character Death, Dancing, Hurt Klaus Hargreeves, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Klave, M/M, References to Drugs, Sad, Time Travel, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-13 18:24:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21002150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wisteria_Mutterings/pseuds/Wisteria_Mutterings
Summary: Klaus Hargreeves has always loved to dance. Until he doesn't.





	The Danse Macabre

Ever since he could remember; Klaus had loved to dance.

When he was little, he’d steal Allison’s skirts and put a record on and spend hours stepping around the room ever so carefully, watching the tulle float around his knees. He’d spend hours learning how to move his hips and shoulders flawlessly, the way that got the skirt to lift and float; almost like magic.

When Vanya began getting good, really good, at the violin, he could be found hovering outside her door. He’d move his feet back and forth along the wood floors, feeling the way the soles of his feet brushed the grain of the polished wood. He'd move his head from side to side and zone in on the music; the way it drowned out the scratches and voices of the dead trying to whisper in his ears.

When he got older, dancing became less about how it looked and more about how it felt. When he was drunk, or high, or in any other way entirely fucked up dancing brought him back to his own body. He could get lost in the music and move his body around, feel the backs of his hand pressed against his eyes, feel his elbows brush past his ribs, his knees touch as he spun. 

The dead couldn’t touch him when he was dancing, they could only sit back and scream while he drowned them out in music and movement and drugs. 

The flashing lights of clubs and bars and house parties became a constant halo around him, turning the ghosts green, purple, red. With music this loud and lights this bright he couldn’t tell who was dead and who wasn’t. He couldn’t tell who was screaming from fun or pain. He could feel the living, hearts pounding, blood rushing, skin brushing against his as he swirled around in a haze of drugs and sweat.

When he met Dave, he really met Dave, he was dancing.  
A simple bump of skin, a simple brush of an arm, or was it a leg? He had been too drunk to remember. The lights were there, red, green, purple. The music was blaring, too loud to talk on the dance floor so they drank instead. Then Dave pulled him away, into a back corner, tucked away from the rest of the world and Dave kissed him.

Klaus had kissed a lot of people before but never like this. He felt like a kid again, a dumb teenager who’d had too much to drink and was finally getting the nerve to kiss their crush. And he discovered, then, that kissing itself was its own kind of dance. Their tongues were waltzing together. Skin brushed skin, his leg against Dave’s thigh, Dave’s hand against his ribs. The feeling in Klaus’ chest was so strong his heart must have been doing the fox-trot.

They tried another kind of dancing, too. Sometimes, if it was too late and Klaus couldn’t sleep or got nightmares or shudders, Dave would take him outside where it was often hot and humid, sometimes raining. Dave would tuck Klaus against his chest and they’d sway around, the way Klaus had done as a kid. Klaus would nuzzle into Dave’s shirt and hear the other man’s heartbeat, warm and fast and so undeniably alive. Sometime's he'd cry, there in the dark, and Dave would shush him ever so gently. Sometimes Dave would hum some tune to a melody Klaus could never remember. Sometimes the dead would scream and Klaus would whimper and clutch Dave's shirt in white-knuckled hands and Dave would kiss his head and rub his back until the dead left them alone.

This was the best type of dancing. Even though the world felt like it was ending. There was death and blood and destruction all around them. And here, in war, the lights weren’t the same, they were yellow, white, pink from the horizon, and the beat was infrequent and scary, they were still dancing and it was enough that Klaus didn’t care that he was practically in hell. He'd been there before but this time was different. 

Because Dave was there. Dave was alive.

Until he wasn’t.

Death wasn’t much like dancing at all.

When Klaus got home, bloody hands and a new tattoo, he fell back into old habits pretty quick. The drugs, the drinking. 

But he couldn’t dance.

The clubs were too bright. The sound too loud. Swaying around made him dizzy, and the feeling of his own arms on his body wasn’t enough. Sometimes he’d put music on and sway around the house, press his hands to his eyes, brush his ribs with his elbow. But it wasn’t dancing.

No, he wasn’t dancing anymore.

And as he lay his hand over his chest, convinced there was hot blood pooling beneath his skin, Klaus doubted he’d ever really dance again.


End file.
